Few things in Kyiv surprise foreigners more than the painted car tires scattered across the city’s residential neighborhoods.
Looking bizarre and out of place, the tires are often mocked by the locals. But back in the day, they actually helped Kyivans improve their neighborhoods when urban improvement resources were scarce in Soviet and post-Soviet Ukraine.
Some tires served as fences protecting the green areas and playgrounds from widespread illegal parking. Some protected newly planted trees and bushes. Some were used as equipment at playgrounds. Others were turned into makeshift decorations, often cut and painted to look like animals, such as swans.
But those days have passed and Kyiv neighborhoods are now trying to clean out all the rubber.
Local utility services are on a mission to collect all the tires in the city to improve the neighborhoods’ looks and protect Kyiv from harmful emissions.
The total number of tires is hard to estimate, but some district utility services pick up hundreds in one trip.
Kyiv’s Solomianskyi District pioneered the initiative to get rid of tires in September. This spring, the Kyiv City State Administration ordered all districts do the same. Most of them started the cleanup campaign by April.
“Such measures will be carried out regularly until the territory of Darnytskyi district is completely cleaned of harmful and dangerous rubber,” Darnytskyi district administration reported on Facebook.
According to the Darnytskyi district administration, old road tires emit dangerous chemicals, some of which cause cancer. Tires are especially harmful when heated by sunlight.
Kyiv authorities don’t yet have a plan on what to do with the tires after collecting them, the Darnytskyi district administration told the Kyiv Post.
Since tires are classified as toxic waste, they can’t be simply thrown away, says Waste Management Center, a private recycling company in Kyiv.
According to the company, tires should be thermally decomposed using pyrolysis.
Many Kyiv citizens and experts saluted the decision on tire removal.
One of them is environmental expert Tetiana Gardashuk, who is also a department head at the Hryhoriy Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
“It is good that all this ‘tire decor’ will be removed because it is unaesthetic and unecological,” Gardashuk told the Kyiv Post.
Kyiv’s utility services said that the tires that once protected newly planted trees will be replaced with eco-friendly alternatives.
Gardashuk says that the tire fencing can be replaced with wooden or metal structures although hedges would be the best solution.
“I think that greenery has no alternative in terms of landscape decor,” Gardashuk said.
Another environmental activist, Anna Danylenko, a coordinator at the nonprofit called Urban Planning Council of Kyiv, also supports the initiative.
“Using tires for landscaping looked like a good decision in the deficit years. But it’s about time to leave them in the past,” Danylenko told the Kyiv Post.
Call the 15-51 utility hotline to report tires that need to be removed.
